The Unwritten Word

A significant ritual for Unknown Armies

This ritual hails from the dawn of recorded history; in fact it is a reaction to the recording of history. It has been passed down the millennia by word-of-mouth only. You won't find a person who knew it in any history book - that should be proof enough of its power. The ritual is commonly used on persons, but it can be used for any item as well. The only prerequisite is that the item must be completely unique; there may be no other copy or version of the item, nor may there ever have been one. Note that it might be possible to break the spell by creating an exact and working copy of the item, but so far this has not been proven. If the ritual is used on a person the help of a trusted friend or servant is needed; this person does not need to know the ritual but must be prepared to lend the caster a hand.

Cost:

5 significant charges

Ritual Action:

Cover yourself, the recipient of the ritual or the item with symbols of as many languages and alphabets as you can find with reasonable research. No symbol may be used twice and the complete body must be covered with only as much space as needed to still recognize the symbols. The symbols must be drawn with the blood of the caster at the time of the new moon. Next the body must be completely encased in wet clay (breathing holes are allowed). The clay-encased body must be placed outside before dawn, and the clay must harden under the sun; the body may not be moved before sundown. When the sun has disappeared under the horizon, use a bronze hammer to shatter the clay encasing. The symbols will have disappeared from the body without a trace.

Effect:

From the breaking of the clay onward no written (or in modern days, filmed, sound-recorded or electronically stored) record of the person or item made or already in existence will last long enough to be of practical use. For modern purposes this means that security video tapes will be accidentally erased before they can be watched; police reports will be misplaced or accidentally shredded so that no investigations will be made; business cards will vanish before the phone numbers on them will be used or memorized; the possibilities are endless. The only recording device not affected is memory. Anyone may remember a person on whom the ritual was cast, talk about him, know his name and phone number, and even give them to others, but if the information is written down it will soon be affected by the magick.